To Prepare for the 2025-2026 Season, I started to keep track of the news & transfers during the off-season bringing Regular Reports on it...
2025-2026 Coach Changes
It looks like there will be quite some Coach changes at the start of the 2025-2026 Season so I begin this series with a small overview of what happened already and what can be expected.
Top Teams:
Club Brugge will keep Hayen on board after a year despite not winning the championship, where he made a good impression. I still kind of feel that more could have been done with the team that Brugge had available which was one of their best in history. This might be a more difficult year as some key players likely will leave while Vanaken is getting older. Their issue was that they gave way too many points away after a good start and a lead and never really pushed which cost them the championship. At the same time with a busy schedule they need to have some energy saving. I anticipate more Club Brugge 1st Half Bets.
Union once again hit the right spot with Pocognoli who did an exceelnt job and I assume he will just stay on and continue making the team play in the same style. Unlike last season, they should now be able to start off hot as they won't have to replace their entire team and their coach. The Champions League matches though likely will make it hard to give equal focus to the league.
Genk played well all season but still gave it away but Fink made an overall great impression as a coach and he will stay on. The main difference this year is that Genk now will play in Europe which will be a totally different story as one of the reasons they managed to do well was because they had 100% focus on the league.
Anderlecht ended up keeping Hasi on as a coach who has shown to be a capable coach but at the same time I continue to have some doubts if he really can bring the style of play that the fans want to see.
Other Teams
AA Gent with Melisevic had a 4-32 goal saldo in the playoffs so they looked for a coach to actually make something of this team which got they to Leko who did excellent work with Standard last year. He adjusted there against his personal style playing full defense to get the most out of it. However, in Gent I do expect him to play more offensive again while at the same time it remains the question if the Gent Squad is actually much better than Standard. So I would say a good choice to bring Leko in but still very questionable in terms of what Gent actually will be able to do next year as some of their better players will likely leave while they have a bad track record of incoming transfers.
Antwerp sacked Ulderink and are currently looking for a new coach. They had options for Leko (who choose for AA Gent, and De Mil who likely will stay with Charleroi. So they likely have to look for the next option. They are looking for someone who knows the belgian league and brings offensive football. At the same time, they don't have too big of a budget and multiple key players likely will leave the team.
Standard saw Leko leave but managed to get
Geraerts who previously did well with Union. He should fit the profile for Standard and is an ex player also. So Standard should be a team with a lot of grinta and working ethic in the 2025-2026 season and no longer the 'defense only' team.
Kv Mechelen will keep Vanderbiest on who took over when Hasi went to Anderlecht. His goal is to make Mechelen a real home team again that brings lots of intensity. At the same time, they don't really have much money which likely is one of the reasons they choose for this coach as I assume he's one of the cheaper options. I would not be surprised if Mechelen had a difficult year especially on the road.
OH Leuven had a team that on paper had a lot of quality last year but this never came out with multiple coaches and Garcia eventually was fired and replaced by Hubert for the start of the 2025-2026 season. He was the coach of Anderlecht for a while taking over from Riemer after something of a coach change effect but never really convinced and made many tactical errors. However, for a smaller club as a starting coach he might be better suited. So I'm still looking to possibly see the potential of OHL coming out.
Westerlo fired Simons after a mediocre season and got back Issame Charaï who came back to belgium after being the 2nd coach in OHL. I'm not quite sure at this point what his stype of play is so I will be looking out for that.
Stvv took on Vrancken late in the season last year and he will start also this year which should give Stvv a much better chance at a good start opposed to last season where they were nowhere at the start.
Cercle Brugge as a panic move got
just for the 2 final playoff matches to stay in the league which worked well and I do expect them to be a lot better this season. Their issues last year were that they had too many key players leave while they could not handle to European Load. This put them in the relegation zone early on and the young team couldn't handle the pressure. These things should not be an issue this season and Cercle might be a team that I look to back early on.
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⚽ Interesting update on the Jupiler League coach changes.
The new season is already looking exciting.
Can’t wait to see how these changes impact the teams